This invention relates to a cleaning device and more particularly to a cleaning device for removing creosote and other deposits from the internal walls of a chimney flue.
It is well recognized that for purposes of fire safety and efficiency in wood burning stoves and fire places that the chimney flue should be cleaned regularly to remove creosotes and other unwanted deposits which build up on the inside of the flue wall.
Generally, flues are cleaned with metal brushes and in some cases metal objects like a chain affixed to the end of a cable or rope. Cleaning, by these techniques, however, although removing the creosote deposits from the wall of the flue do not provide a highly efficient method of cleaning. This is due to the fact that these techniques do not permit a sufficient force to be applied against a chimney flue wall to enable efficient removal of creosote deposits.
In order to avoid the above deficiency of said flue cleaning methods, various devices have been devised over the years in order to attempt to exert more force and pressure against the side of the flue wall in order to clean chimney flues more efficiently and effectively.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,110,856; 1,184,784; 1,500,886; 4,254,528; and 4,490,879 illustrate various devices for cleaning chimney flues which have been devised over the years. These devices, however, suffer from various deficiencies such requiring the device to be suspended from a cable or rope in which case no effective scraping force can be applied to the chimney wall, or in other cases are designed so that only two surfaces of the wall are cleaned at the same time requiring a duplicate effort to be required in order to clean the remaining two walls of a square or rectangular chimney flue. In addition, the prior art suffers from the requirement that any adjustment regarding the size of the cleaning device, and hence force applied against the flue wall, be made before placing the device inside the chimney to clean the flue wall. Therefore, in operation, when an adjustment is required regarding the size of the chimney cleaning device, it must be removed from the flue and readjusted prior to continuing the cleaning operation. These prior art devices also suffer from the disadvantage of being easily susceptible to becoming lodged inside the chimney flue.